


Holiday sadness

by Opal_Lakes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Celebrations, Family Bonding, Gen, Ghosts, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Halloween, Holiday hijinks are afoot, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Whump, Luther and Allison are besties pls don't read it as anything else pfft, Post-Apocalypse, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, and a lot of 'em, emotional whump?, no beta we die like ben, no incest you nasty lil bastards, no pogo cause i forgot him but all well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 03:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21237683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opal_Lakes/pseuds/Opal_Lakes
Summary: Halloween may seem like the perfect holiday, where you can get dressed up as whoever you want, where candy is free and the parties are constant and wild, but when you're able to see the dead and so completely sober, well, it's not all that great.





	Holiday sadness

Growing up under Reginald’s stern rules and regulations meant that the Hargreaves children were never really children. They were raised as soldiers, expected to spend their days training and studying to hone their supernatural abilities in order to be able to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, to protect the world from its evitable end. Which meant that holidays and celebrations were considered foolish and a waste of time in Reginald’s eyes and he expected the children to be on their up-most perfect behaviour, never slacking off their responsibilities no matter what day it was

The children had tried, first trying to persuade their father into letting them celebrate the important things, like birthdays and Christmas, but Reginald was quick and swift with his punishments for speaking out of term to argue for something so pointless. Five was the third and last person to ask a week before their 9th birthday; he wasn’t all too fussed about it, but Vanya was planning to ask herself, and he knew that Reginald would not take kindly to _her_ stepping out of line. He, unfortunately, didn’t hold back on Five, and the others agreed to never bring it up with their father again.

After that they had only gone to Grace to beg her to let them celebrate those special days, quietly pestering her when Reginald was safely out of earshot, but Grace would always just smile down kindly at them, pinch their cheeks lovingly as she told them there was nothing she could do, and for them not to ask again. They just continued to ask her throughout the years, but her answer was always remain the same despite how hard they begged and plead; Luther stopped asking when their father first rejected the idea, Five shortly after, but the others still had hope, but as their 12th birthday came and went, the others quickly lost their enthusiasm.

Outside the Academy it wasn’t much different, it was hard to rewrite the strict rules they were held by, even harder to adapt to the normality of life outside of the mansion.

Luther remained in the Academy up until his unfortunate accident and subsequent 4 year mission on the moon. He never dared to step out of turn, always following his orders and being the soldier he was born to be, but that didn’t stop him from sneaking out onto the roof on New Years to watch the sky light up with fireworks, taking careful glances back to the door in fear of someone spotting him. Up in space the fireworks were impossible to see.

Diego was too busy to celebrate with everyone else; when he first escaped the Academy he found himself diving head first into the police academy, too busy with his training and studies to care about the such childish things. Sure, he was able to enjoy one or two parties with his peers when they were still in training; they had all gone out on Halloween to get stinking drunk at a bar nearby and even Diego couldn’t pretend he didn’t have fun. But then he got kicked out of the force, and after that the holidays became his busiest time, taking care of the aggressive drunks and assaults that took place out on the streets.

Allison quickly found herself going along as she rose in fame, getting invited to the most exclusive parties and celebrations full of expensive cocktails and high end gowns and suits. Of course she went to them all, but the change felt so jarring, so harsh, that Allison would smile without it reaching her eyes, downing her drinks a little too quickly before leaving early. Going from not even acknowledging important dates to suddenly being thrown into loud parties full of decorations and cheery people was too much. Then she got married and had Claire, and decided it’s best to leave the holiday celebrations to Patrick. Then they got divorced, and celebrating and keeping up appearances wasn’t important anymore.

Klaus got exposed to the outside world when he was, arguably, fair too young, free falling into drugs and alcohol and stranger’s arms. He adored the holidays, thrived among all the partying and fun; people were always more generous during those times, easy to let Klaus share a pill or a drink or something a little stronger as they danced under strobe lights and pounding music. When he wasn’t getting high out of his mind, Klaus was stuck in rehab, forced to sit in a circle and pretend like talking about all his juicy childhood trauma actually helped him, and rehab loved to put up those cheap dollar store paper decorations of cartoon Santas and snowflakes; it was the only time that Klaus hated the holidays.

Five never got to the celebrate the holidays when living in the apocalypse, the only thing on his mind was surviving until the next day, fighting off sickness and starvation as he wandered the burning wastelands alone. Then he worked for the Commission, and he was still too busy surviving to partake in the celebrations; people around him would party while he camped out in shitty motels surrounded by guns with an order to kill. Five never felt the need to celebrate, so it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t miss what he never had.

Ben died before his time, stuck by Klaus’ side as he feel deeper and deeper into despair. He stood on the sidelines as the living celebrated together, laughing and carefree as he watched them. During such times he would feel lonelier than ever, invisible to everyone around him as he lost Klaus in a sea of sweat and drugs, he would wander off and check in on his other siblings and dream of the life he could have had.

Vanya had been excited to celebrate her first holiday, to go out and buy decorations and cover her measly apartment with them and enjoy her slice of normality. She quickly realized the holidays were an awful time when you never had any friends, sitting in her apartment as Christmas movies played non stop and tried not to think about how alone she felt. Then she started playing at the Icarus Theatre, and when major holidays rolled around the orchestra would get hired to play high-end parties and Vanya would play her violin as people celebrated around her, living a life she would never get to live, and pretended that was okay.

Then Reginald died, Five reappeared just how he left, and the apocalypse almost happened.

After that it was hard to move on, to go back to the lives they were trying to live knowing what they all knew.

Luther, Five, and Klaus (and Ben of course) didn’t have anywhere to go, so the Academy became their -albeit reluctant- home. Vanya had her own apartment and was perfectly content on staying there but after a quick discussion with Five, she agreed to spend a few nights in the Academy to practice her new powers. Allison and Diego were eager to go back to their own lives and agreed to stop by the house whenever they were able too.

The first few months were strange to say the least, living in the house where they were raised and tortured was something that they had to get used to, but Reginald was long gone, and the Hargreaves were finally able to be a family -still very much dysfunctional, but a family nevertheless.

They fell into a routine surprisingly quickly; Luther would wake up first, sit with a newspaper and tea as Grace started breakfast, with Five flashing in to stock up on caffeine and carbs before blinking away without so much of a greeting. Klaus would stumble down late and pick at whatever food he had while talking to nothing, occasionally throwing some witty comment at Luther who would, in return, bite back any snide comment. After breakfast everyone split off to do their own thing unless it was a dedicated training day where Vanya would show up sometime around noon to practice her powers with Five. Klaus would occasionally join them, but spent more time goofing around and trying to get a laugh out of his siblings before Five kicked him out with colourful threats. Dinner was a meal they usually spent together, something most of them had agreed to, where they could sit down and enjoy a meal and actually talk. Luther had picked up a lot of books of dealing with trauma and dysfunction and enjoyed the sprout out motivational and feel good quotes for the past few weeks, much to everyone’s annoyance.

The whole ‘family’ thing was, more or less, working out for them, so when September rolled around Allison suggested coming back to the Academy for their birthday during her weekly phone call. She didn’t have anything too important during that week and decided that spending their birthday all together to celebrate for the first time was a lot more appealing then hiding out in her apartment alone, kept inside in fear of getting swarmed by the paparazzi. Luther was more than happy for Allison to come and visit, and the two went back and forth with ideas for how to celebrate. It would take some effort roping in Five and Diego to join in, but Luther figured he could leave Vanya and Klaus to convince them.

Soon it was settled, all of them would meet in the Academy in their nicest outfits -”and I mean nicest Klaus.”-before going out to a nice Italian restaurant to celebrate.

What wasn’t planned, however, were the ridiculous and overabundance of ‘Happy 30th birthday!’ banners, balloons and streamers that covered all the walls, random piles of confetti littering every surface. It didn’t take long before the culprit was found, as Luther found Klaus attempting to stick two party hats on top of Grace’s head.

“Busted.” Klaus hissed to the space behind him, and Luther could only imagine the face Ben was pulling.

“Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard?”

“Nope!” Klaus grinned, popping the P obnoxiously, he straightened the second hat on Grace’s head as she smiled, positively beaming as she sat patiently for him to finish “If anything I’m making up for your lack of enthusiasm, I mean really, it’s like you’ve never celebrated anything before!”

“Well,” Luther’s shoulders slumped “I haven’t really.”

Klaus balked at that, staring at Luther for a few uncomfortable seconds before whistling “Wow. Our childhood was truly awful huh?”

Klaus quickly turned back to Grace, double-checking his work before his face split into a grin before shoving his hand into his(originally Diego’s) dressing gown pocket and pulled out a party popper. He gently passed the popper into Grace’s hands, pressed a quick kiss on her cheek before dancing out the kitchen, throwing a wave behind his head in Luther’s direction before he disappeared upstairs. Luther turned back to Grace as she stared down at the popper before turning to Luther to beam.

“Happy birthday dear!” She cheered before turning the popper and sending a pitiful puff of colourful confetti to burst out and quickly fall onto the kitchen floor. Grace looked down to look at the sudden mess before she chuckled “Oh dear, looks like I’ve made a mess!”

“It’s okay, I’ll clean it up.”

That wasn’t the last mess Luther found himself cleaning up that day as every room he entered was covered in a mess of colours and birthday wishes, which would have been fine if that was it. It appeared that Klaus had made it his personal goal to go overboard with celebrating, shoving party hats on anyone he ran into and throwing party poppers and little baggies full of ‘30th’ shaped confetti that he pulled out of nowhere at people. Luther didn’t comment on it, simply staying silent as he let Klaus attempted to shove a hat on his head, a hat he would quickly discard the second Klaus left the room.

Allison and Vanya seemed to embrace it best, smiling sweetly as Klaus buzzed around them, somehow convincing them to paint his nails as they chatted excitedly about their dinner plans. Diego threw a knife through the hat the second Klaus pulled it out, pinning the paper cone against the wall behind them. Klaus attempted four more times before giving up, claiming he was started to run out of hats before going to bother another sibling. Five simply blinked away whenever Klaus entered the room, but that didn’t stop Klaus from trying to catch him.

By the time evening rolled around, everyone gathered in the lobby of the mansion for pre-drinks, dressed in their nicest outfits as they chatted. Klaus was the last to come down, wearing that dreadful green and red frilled shirt and carrying an armful of poorly wrapped presents.

“I thought we agreed on no gifts?” Allison’s frown was quick to appear.

“I know we did, but I blatantly ignored it because it’s stupid” Klaus huffed, handing out a lump of wrapping paper and a card to each of his siblings “It’s like you don’t know how to celebrate anything! Truly no fun at all.”

His siblings unwrapped their gifts, each revealing their own home-made scarf, all different colours with their initials stitched in at the ends. They were all tricoloured with harshly clashing colours and sloppy stitches, and Klaus was buzzing nervously as they unwrapped their presents.

“It’s beautiful Klaus!”

“You’ve really improved, I didn’t even know you could do scarfs yet.”

Klaus practically glowed under the praise of his sisters “I kept it a secret! I’ve been working on them for _months_ so you better enjoy them because I’m _never_ doing this shit again.”

The quickly opened their cards, amused by Klaus’ silly little notes he’d written inside them. Luther didn’t hold back his glare at Klaus, gesturing to the cartoon monkey on his car with a poorly scribbled _30_ in the corner.

“Consider yourself lucky” Five sneered, scrunching up his card -a card with a cheery _Glad you reached another year Grandad!_ printed on the front- before throwing it at Klaus’ head.

The others lounged around the lobby after that while Five and Klaus went outside to wait for their taxi. Vanya spoke up, glancing around at the banners and balloons and huffed as she struggled to straighten her lopsided scarf “He’s just acting this way because it’s our 30th, right?”

Diego snorted loudly “Nope. He once spent an Easter with me and decided to redecorate my room with creepy paper bunnies and hide coloured eggs everywhere. Little bastard hid eggs in my bed, I’d come home late and end up having to clean my bedsheets because I sat on them. He just ended up screeching about the ‘spirit of the holidays’ and called me a Grinch.”

Allison rolled her eyes with a slight smile “Makes sense that Klaus is one of those nuts that gets too into holidays.”

“Yeah it’s a shame he’s not all repressed about them like us.”

“Oh crap” Allison suddenly winced, spinning around on her shiny new heels with a click “It’s almost Halloween.”

“Yeah” Diego chuckled “We’re all fucked.”

So you can imagine their surprise when no Halloween decorations began to pop up around the house. Luther would be lying if he said he hadn’t expected to wake up on the 2nd of October to find a bunch of cheap decorations stuck to the walls, but the only thing he found were the leftover party banners and streamers that still hung around the house. The Hargreaves siblings just shrugged it off, believing they would eventually found out what Klaus had planned to be as disruptive as possible.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this months ago, left it 'til later in October cause I figured oh I can get this done in time! I ended up working more overtime the last two weeks and depressed as shit. Also, I feel like I'm having an off day with my dyslexia? Like everything I read makes no sense and I have no idea how to write? Ridiculous! 
> 
> Anyways, I don't like daily prompts but wanted to do something for October and settled on a Halloween fic, originally it was gonna be Klaus going overboard with that but then I remembered that the barrier between the dead and the living is thinner? That's like the who point of Halloween? So I googled and yeah, originally Halloween was all about scaring away the sudden abundance of ghosts and well, I don't think Klaus would enjoy a holiday where there are more ghosts then ever. So I scrapped the story (f) but I like this one better anyway so pfft it all works out!
> 
> There's another part to this, it was actually 12 pages but the constant switching of the siblings' perspective didn't flow well, so I cut it in half and am currently working on the next chapter! I have work today up until Sunday so the likelihood of me updating in time for tomorrow is slim or nothing, so apologies in advance for a late Halloween story!
> 
> Also!! I had no beta! And since reading wasn't a thing I could do I just put my whole story into google translate and let the robot lady read it out to me so I could pick out any mistakes, I did it twice for safety buuuut, some mistakes might remain so sorry!
> 
> Please comment if you liked it! It would make my day !


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